Have you ever been waiting in a doctor's office and started worrying about your doctor's professional focus because the only magazines available are "Yachting," "Conde Nast Travel," "Business Week," etc? Combing through such a pile recently, I came across a publication entitled "Worth: The Evolution of Financial Intelligence." (Sandow Media, June-July 2010)
The cover illustration is a bull, with head, shoulders, and front legs emerging from a forest, emblazoned with: "Are We Out of the Woods Yet?" With the recent turmoil and speculation about the economy, and more important, to me, the questions surrounding the latest tax bill, I thought I might learn something.
Boy did I ever.
Let's start with some of the advertisements:
- The back cover is an illustration of a HondaJet: "Own an Original"
2. Object of Desire: Falcon Motorcycles. Starting at $125,000. "Why you need it: Because no one else will have it."
3. Object of Desire: Thoroughbred horse. $1,000 - $13.1 million. "Why you need it: For a chance to stand in the winners' circle at high-stakes races."
4. Sladmore: 19TH AND 20TH CENTURY SCULPTURE. Photo of "Dancer at Rest," Edgar Degas
5. SPDRGOLDSHARES.COM: "Precise in a world that isn't."
6. U.S. Trust: "What is passing down your values as well as your assets worth?"
7. The World: Residences at Sea: "Why limit yourself when you can travel aboard the world's largest private yacht and live life to the fullest, all around the globe. The first and only residential ship."
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Since I wanted to find out the answer to the question of whether or not we are out of the woods, I decided to look at some of the articles (I had to take my pen knife to scrape off some of the vomit that was drying quickly). The main Table of Contents was a series of short articles, usually one page, in answer to some very pressing questions. Here is a brief sample:
- How can I minimize my estate taxes?
2. How serious is the threat of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, and how do I protect myself?
3. Why should art insurance be considered part of a wealth management program?
4. Are my personal assets exposed by serving on a not-for-profit board?
5. What are the repercussions of a developed country defaulting on its sovereign debt?
6. How can I protect myself from identity theft?
The answers to these and other rhetorical questions were provided by "wealth management" experts from various agencies such as Morgan, Stanley, Smith, Barney, LLC. My take on the basic premise of the magazine is that whether or not you accumulated your wealth through inheritance, hard work, speculation, an ingenious idea, good luck, or whatever, here, my rich friends, are the tools to guarantee that you can keep the bulk of it and make sure that your heirs are not bothered by those pesky estate taxes.
It was rather depressing for me to come across this magazine after reading rexymeteorite's diary On Being Poor. My anger is tinged with sadness since I really thought we might be able to start the move back to a decent social welfare state where basic needs are guaranteed. But like so many of you, I am not giving up. My current goal is to support and work for a progressive challenger to Scott Brown, who is pretending he is a Blue Dog in a very, very Blue state. Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined a Cosmo model in a pick-up truck succeeding The Lion.
We all have work to do. I have no idea at the moment if I will be voting for Obama.